


A Halloween Miracle

by Bodhicitta



Series: A Halloween Miracle [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, BAMF Molly, Body Swap, F/M, Female Sherlock Holmes, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Molly Hooper and Sherlock Swap Transport, Mollyverse, Sherlock Experiences Life as a Female, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:43:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an intense night of drinking and deep philosophical conversation, Sherlock wakes up in Molly's body.  Molly wakes up in Sherlock's body.  One of the confused pair is very eager to swap back.  The other is not as willing to let go....</p><p>What will it take to restore order to their universe?</p><p>I'm not good at titles!! For all you crazy Sherlloly-ists out there. My tribe!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I must be really, really hungover.

Sherlock clenched his eyes closed, shook his head violently and opened his eyes again, this time slowly.

The same appalling evidence stared back at him from the mirror. Instead of the blue-green feline eyes that seemed to bewitch much of the female half of the species and quite a few of the male caste, he gazed into (through, and with) chocolate _brown_ orbs more befitting a cow, or a doe.

Instead of the odd, sullen, horsey mug to which he had grown entirely accustomed, he was greeted with a tiny, doll-like visage, pink-cheeked and dimpled.  A great mane of red-brown tresses cascaded about his small, soft shoulders and slight upper arms.

Casting all reason and logic aside, he had to acknowledge the truth. Overnight, through some horrible, demonic alchemy, he had been incontrovertibly transformed into a certain slight, gentle, and - casting his eyes down at the pert little breasts now adorning his chest, and gulping in astonishment - decidedly female pathologist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is coming in such tiny chunks! My laptop died, and I am literally typing this with one finger on my phone!! Needless to say, my finger is very tired! (I was finally able to get on a desktop computer at the library!!)

Sherlock splashed water on his face, barking curses at the fact that he had to flip long chestnut locks out of the way. Reaching for a towel, he inadvertently knocked over the carefully arranged perfume bottles, hair spray, the lipsticks that had been precariously balanced on one end like toy soldiers. Overreacting, he swung back the other way - mousse, deodorant, a curling wand, and five bottles of nail polish all went smashing to the floor.

Was it really this hard to be female?

He staggered out of the bathroom, tripping over a laundry basket of panties, and terrifying The Cat.

He padded back into the bedroom on tiny little feet.   _Why are your feet so small, Molly?_ he wondered.   _How can you walk on these little, chubby, pink..._

Sherlock stopped and stared straight down at his toes ("Her toes.   _Her_ toes. My toes are...elsewhere"...).

How does she get her feet so smooth?  She must scrub them incessantly!  Sherlock marveled at the smooth creamy nails, so clean and well maintained, just a coat of sheer polish. No, not sheer.  Blush.

I can't believe this.  I can't believe I'm Molly Hooper. But I am not her.  I'm still me. My internal voice still sounds like me.  This is not her brain. Or at least I think it's not her Brain. But what could that mean? We didn't have brain transplants. So what happened?  A soul transplant?  

Since Sherlock did not believe in souls, he dismissed this idea immediately and began sifting through the other reasonable possibilities.

I'm hallucinating.

I'm in in a coma.

I'm the victim of a brain injury. 

And what of Molly?  Had they both been kidnapped?  Was she somewhere in the apartment?  Tied up? Bound? Gagged? Dead?  Perish the thought. If she had been deprived of life, she will have taken My Transport with her. And I'll be damned if I spend the rest of eternity...in _this_!!  (Also her being dead would make utilizing the resources at Bart's most inconvenient.

And the missing her and all...that part, too.

He stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water.  He grabbed for a tumbler and didn't reach far enough.  He grabbed for the tap and missed it.

"These arms!!"  Every time he reached for something he missed it by a mile; it was like being drunk.

He had to clamber on the counter like a child to reach the top shelf where he knew she hid the biscuits.

But I'm not hungry in the morning. I'm _never_ hungry.  And then it struck him - I'm in the body of a perpetually dieting woman, and I could eat an aircraft carrier.

"And not a carb in sight, dammit!"  

His eyes widened at the sound of her squeaky morning voice.  Oh, my God...her voice...I'm speaking in her voice.

Hunger pangs reasserted themselves.  Hunger like a deep unfillable well  Where are the fucking muffins?  Toast, anything!! I need help!  I need John. Mrs. Hudson.  Someone.

But who could help him?  He couldn't tell anyone. How could I possibly tell anyone?  He would be committed.  No, the only course of action for today at least would be to call in sick. That would give him some time to plan a research protocol for this most unusual circumstance.  He would need to get back into his own body.  In order to do that he needed to...

Molly. What must she be thinking now, waking up inside of him. With all his faults and flaws and odd angles and itchy parts?  Her sweet, calm spirit encased in his hard, machine-like skeleton that he had trained so well for agility and cobra-like speed. Something about the notion of her inhabiting his body, knowing him from the inside out engendered a feeling that he never would have anticipated.  

Arousal.  Warm, wet heat spread between his legs. Her legs.

He padded back into the bedroom, sat down heavily on her rumpled sheets.  Yes, he would call in sick. But first...first...his hand wandered down. He let the soft palm lay still on his abdomen (her abdomen!).  He drummed his fingers on the surprisingly taut belly.  Did she do Pilates?

He stood up to examine his reflection in the dresser mirror.  Her reflection!  No, it's mine now.  This is my reflection.  But it's her.  I'm looking at _her_!  Oh dammit!

Staring back at him, mouth agape, a little nymph, all sleepy and white and dewy, flushed from anxiety. Hair in a cloud of tangles (oh, she won't be happy about that)...the soft morning light kissing her skin.

"I'm like a Venus," Sherlock marveled. "A tiny, goofy Venus."

Just look at my tits - his mouth fell open as he watched himself pull his nipples. Cupped his (her!) breasts.  He dragged a soft, sylph-like arm across his face, and licked the length of one finger with her small, moist tongue.

Three hours later, he emerged from a damp fog - he knows not how the time had passed (or he knew, but was loathe to allow the admission entrance into his conscious mind).

Dimly aware of a soft hand resting on his forehead, a thought flitted through his mind.  I will get up now. I will start my day.

A phone was ringing. He fumbled about on her night table, knocking over a stack of science fiction novels, a bottle of Coco Chanel, and a flashlight.

Of course, he knew the pass code to her phone. 

"Oh, shit."   There were eight messages.  Five from Mike Stamford.  Two from John.  One from...Sherlock.  

 _Sherlock_?

He sat down hard on the bed.  She has my phone.  She is...in my body.  Using my phone.  Trying on my clothes?  Going to the bathroom?  Looking at my...weird nose and predator's eyes and sallow skin.  What must she be thinking....


	3. Chapter 3

Why do I feel so heavy?

Molly tried to roll over onto her back and heard a deep groan. A masculine groan.

Oh, Lord. Did I...?

She racked her brains to remember (Remember, just remember... _think_ , dammit) did she, ( _would_ she?)....

Had she actually picked up some bloke, some stranger, and brought him home with her?  And did they...? _Ugh._

She rubbed her face into the pillow and was overwhelmed by the delicious scent of sandalwood and whiskey and a very familiar hair conditioner.  Figures she'd fall into bed with someone who smells exactly like Sherlock.  And what did we do last night?  His scent is all over me!  Did he rub his head all over my body?? I'm such a whore!!

She flipped over, opened her eyes, but instead of the sky-blue ceiling she had recently adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars, she saw a plain white, stippled ceiling.  Cobwebs swayed gently in the air drafts.  It was a familiar ceiling.  Not her own. Still...familiar.   What the...?

She must have really gone overboard last night. She remembers a Halloween party. Sherlock's idiotic costume.  His derisive remarks about her own ("Don't try to be funny, Molly, it doesn't suit").

Too many mojitos.

_I'd figured you for a cosmo girl, Molly._

_A Cosmo Girl?  Is that your way of saying I'm a bimbo?_

_No, not at all, I, I..._

Oh, that Sherlock.  He'd found a way to insult me even through my choice of BOOZE!

_Here, why don't you try my whiskey; it's time you grew up a bit...I mean, you don't need to grow up, you are obviously quite grown, well past grown, I mean, I didn't mean to imply that you're old...or fat, or any of those things that I'm sure you're divining from the subtext of what I'm saying even though there is no subtext and all I'm saying is...do you want some whiskey?_

Good.  I had made him stutter.

 _I'll stick to mojitos, thanks._  She absentmindedly licked the sweet syrupy concoction off of her straw. _It reminds me of Key West._

Sherlock's mouth cocked to one side. 

_Is that what you call a smile these days?_

He chuckled. _Have you ever been to Key West?_

She'd thought about lying, but thought better of it. _No._

_Then how can a drink remind you of a place you've never been?  How can you be nostalgic for something of which you have had no experience?_

Sherlock moved into her personal space, as was his wont, examining her face for this mystery, this nostalgia.  She held her ground, partially because she was beginning to be annoyed, partially because if she took even the slightest step backwards, she might topple over.

The rest was blur.

And now she had actually slept with a stranger. And hadn't even made it home to her own bed!  And was now compelled to perform the ritual known to women of loose morals since time immemorial - The Walk of Shame.

Time to face the music.She propped herself up on her forearms. Ugh, why do I feel like lead? And Jesus H., what did I do to my back, I feel like someone stabbed me through to my chest wall! The pain was dull, like a wound still healing.

Oh, God. I can't believe this.  Did I fall on something? I feel like I've been....shot....

She reached to palpitate the sore spot, and felt dizzy again.  Her hands...was he groping her? These hands are...my hands look huge.  

"I feel ill," she said to no one in particular.  Wait?  Who said that?  "You feel ill, too?  You feel ill?"

Why was the man she assumed was still in her bed mimicking her?  

But as the cold truth of consciousness began to assert itself, she realized that she was alone.  And this wasn't just any man's bed.  A ninja sword hung on the opposite wall.  A certificate declaring that the recipient had received a black belt in Taekwondo hung in pride of place on the wall to her left.  

Oh, Jesus.  I feel really dizzy, I feel...

Like the blood was being drained out of her head from a spigot.

She looked at her crotch and saw an male erection sprouting from between her legs, and quite a huge one.  Glorious, really.

When Molly regained consciousness, she was screaming, hoarsely, braying really, and John Watson was restraining her from behind, holding her flailing arms down by her side and murmuring, "That's what you get for drinking like there's no tomorrow."


	4. Giving Thanks

For the fourth time this morning, Sherlock slid his hand (his hand?) down this pliant, supple female stomach, ploughing a path of want and need leading inexorably to her humid folds, her sensitive nub.  He came so fast he shrieked.

Oh, my god.  Did I just molest her?

He was dizzy, and satisfied...but within moments, he was burning up again.

I need _more_.  He licked his finger tips (her small, perfectly formed fingers) and dove in once more, rubbing himself raw, while the other hand flicked and played with her nipples.

Sweet Jesus! How does she get up in the morning?  It's like having an amusement park at your disposal. Transport, transport, it's just trans...but he couldn't finish the thought because another deeply sweet orgasm washed through him like a blast from a furnace.

After many more moments in a luxurious, sensual haze, Sherlock knew he had to bite the bullet.  He tapped the password into Molly's phone and called Mike Sanford to beg off work.  

Then he dialed John.  Before he could get a word out, John frantically blurted out, "Oh, Molly, thank God.  Sherlock is in a bad way."

Sherlock's mind calculated all of the appalling possibilities, but settled on being relieved that at least his Transport was still alive. "How do you mean, _a bad way_?"

"Well, it's hard to say, I guess, it's just that...."

"Oh, for God's sake, John, just spit it out!"

An awkward silence indicated that the good doctor was more than taken aback by the uncharacteristic rudeness.  "Molly?  Everything okay?"

Sherlock shook off the discomfiture of hearing John call him "Molly."  He would have to do a better job at schooling his words to match the gentle pathologist's personality.  

"Yes, John.  I'm so..." What was the word?  "Sorry."

"Forgiven, Sweetheart.  Since you're never ever rude, I'll have to assume you are under tremendous stress from work, or from fretting over a certain someone..."

 _Sweetheart?_  Since when did my assistant call Molly "sweetheart?"  And how could someone never ever be rude?  Even the sainted Miss Hooper.  And why would she be fretting over me.  Or was she fretting over me.  Perhaps she was fretting over that tedious ex-boyfriend.  Somewhere in the midst of these musings he realized that John was still speaking.

"Well, I came to Baker Street to collect him for a case, and I could hear his screaming from the hallway.  I found him in his bed, shaking, and screeching bloody murder.  I did my best to calm him down and got a black eye in the process.  Now he's curled up in a ball, gone completely foetal.  Moaning something about 'my hair, my hair...'"

John lowered his voice.  "I'm going to be bringing Sherlock in.  He needs testing.  Again, I'm afraid."

Oh, Lord.  "Why...what are his symptoms.  Tell me right now.  If you don't tell me immediately and very, very quickly..."

Sherlock knew Molly would have said something to fill the silence that indicated John Watson's discomfiture.  "I'm just...I'm just a bit peckish, s'all.  You know...always be slimming!"

"I know, darling, I know you are really upset.  We always get upset when Sherlock...does this.  But I don't want it to affect you like it did the last time."

 _Darling? The last time?_ Sherlock would have to ponder these questions at a later date  RIght now he needed to regain control of the variables in this bizarre turn of events.  Too much chaos made for bad outcomes, particularly when occurrences that were quite possibly occult in nature were concerned.  "Are you sure it's a good idea to take her...to take _him_ out?  In public?

"We're already on our way.  And, Molly.  Get yourself something to eat.  It's going to be a long morning...."

***

Sherlock walked into the Lestrade's Halloween party _like he was walking onto a yacht._  He sauntered directly over to Molly, who pointedly ignored him.

He jutted into her personal space, interposing himself between her and the two junior DI's who were flirting with her.

She sighed heavily, and turned to him.  "Hi, Sherlock," she said wearily.  

He didn't answer.  She took several more sips on her straw and then ventured, "Where's your costume?"

"This is my costume."

Molly looked him up and down.

"A trench coat.  A white button down shirt.  Pants.  Black shoes."

"I'm a serial killer.  They look like everyone else."

She rolled her eyes and smoothed down her tight black satin corset.

"And you are a crack whore?  It's quite sad, really."

"Uh, no...I'm a Las Vegas show girl, and I put a lot of effort into this."

"Yes," Sherlock sniffed.  "That's the sad part."

Molly turned on her heel and walked away from him, her ponytail swinging dismissively behind her.

***

John pushed a dazed Sherlock into Molly's lab.  The detective staggered like a newborn colt, struggling to make sense of very long limbs.  His eyes were glazed over, and he blabbered incoherently, all the while grabbing at the back of his head, looking for a ponytail that wasn't there.

"Sherlock" seemed not to be aware that the pathologist had begun circling him, clipboard in hand, cataloguing his frantic expression, his spastic trembling, his sweating brow.  Suddenly the subject looked up, met her eyes, and began to wail.  John assumed this display, although wholly out of character, was due to the shame of being caught yet again in the aftermath of a drug binge.

When Mycroft sauntered in through a side door, importuning Dr. Watson for details on his brother's latest misadventure, the slight pathologist leaned over and whispered into the detective's ear.  

"It's me.  Molly, it's me.  It's Sherlock.  I know you're in there.  Somehow...we've swapped."

Molly looked imploringly at the person in front of her - herself, she thought, _herself_.  

"Help....me," she intoned with haunted eyes.

Sherlock began, for the first time, to be worried.

"I will help you, Molly.  But for now, I think it prudent that we keep up the pretense of being who we appear to be."

"So, it's you?  It's really you?  Sherl..." She reached out to touch his face - her face.  Her very own face.  "I can't...this can't be.  I don't believe it. I am...insane.  Please give me something.  Make it go away."

"What if I told you, you helped me when I needed it most.  What if I told you that you're wrong; that you've always mattered.  You always _counted_."

Molly's eyes widened and turned to emerald pools.

"Yes, that is exactly what I mean.  I never do that with my eyes."

"Do... _what_?"

"Let them fill with water like that."

"You mean...cry?  You never _cry_?!?!"

"Shh!  I also don't squeal!"

"Sherlock.  I'm scared!  I'm so...scared."

John and Mycroft suddenly look up from their hushed conversation and stared at the two.  Mycroft frowned when he saw his brother clutching the pathologist's upper arms in supplication, tears brimming on the edge of his eyelashes.  

"Pull yourself together,"  Sherlock scolded.  "They're starting to notice."

"I want them to notice.  Mycroft.  He can help."

Sherlock stood up on tiptoes, leaned into His Transport's ear, and whispered, "Say you have an allergy.  Pretend to sneeze."

Molly obliged.

"Now say, "I really need you to help me.  I have the worst allergy and I can't take any medicine because of the drugs.'"

Molly followed through with Sherlock's directives. 

Sherlock grabbed what used to be his arm, and tried to yank Molly towards a private examination room.  "Now come with me, _Sherlock_."

"No." 

John and Mycroft temporarily halted their conversation to observe the squabbling.

"I won't go with you!"  Molly yanked her arm away from Sherlock, growing ever more aware of how much strength she now possessed.  "I don't know what is going on, but I won't do anything else with you.  For all I know, you did this on purpose.  For research!"

"You really must stop now, Sherlock.  You're not making any sense!"

John and Mycroft turned just in time to see Molly slap Sherlock hard across the face.  

"Molly" turned to the two men.  "He's as high as a kite.  Aren't you...S _herlock?"_

"Yes," the detective grudgingly admitted, rubbing his jaw.

"And I won't stand for it anymore.  I'm admitting you.  Come with me..."

***  
In the examining room, Molly cornered Sherlock, finding it quite intoxicating to loom over the man who had so often hovered over her, making her feel at once powerless and filled with desire.  "You've been waiting to do that."

"What?"

"Slap me!  I'll bet you've been wanting to do that for months!!"

Sherlock chuckled and danced a little gig.  "Can't say that it wasn't fun."  Sherlock drew back up his little hand and made to let loose round two on his own smug, square-jawed face.

Molly's hand flew out caught Sherlock's hand (her own hand!) with a cobra-like speed that surprised her.  She raised her eyebrows in admiration.  Sherlock nodded.  "See that!  Reflexes.  I think you'll enjoy that bit!"

"What are we gonna do, Sherlock?  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!!"

"I dunno.  Calibrate experiments.  Sleep until four pm.  Check on my boltholes.  The usual."

Molly glared at him.  "That's no kind of Thanksgiving, Sherlock!"

"Molly."

"What?"

"Call _me_ 'Molly, Molly.'"

John opened the door and popped his head into the examination room, noticing his friend's agitation and Molly's penetrating, unyielding gaze.  Finally, The World Famous Consulting Detective turned to look at John.  

"I feel better now, John. I'm ready to go home."  

"Sherlock" bowed "his" head and whispered in defeat.  "To Baker Street."


	5. Chapter 5

Outside of St. Bart's "Sherlock" crumpled so suddenly to the ground that John thought he had been shot.  John scraped his friend - his heavy friend - off the ground, all long limbs, elbows jutting out every which way, and bones were there shouldn't be bones, but somehow John folded him into a cab.  

"What the hell is going on, Sherlock?"

"I don't feel so well."  Mumbling.

When they arrived at Baker Street, John noticed Mycroft's sentries at their posts - in the alley.  Behind a curtain on the third floor of the house across the street.  Down the block, smoking a cigarette.

John cocked his head waiting for Sherlock to say something snarky about Mycroft needing to get other hobbies besides playing babysitter to a grown man.  But Sherlock _did not notice_ the sentries.  He sped quickly up the steps, and paused, waiting for John to let them both in.  John followed behind him, thoroughly puzzled.

John waited for Sherlock to set the knocker Mycroft had straightened back to its normally crooked angle.  

"Please, John."  Sherlock looked at him imploringly, ignoring the knocker hanging straight, as was proper.  "I need to go to the bathroom.

"You, uh...what?"  John stared at him quizzically.  Maybe Mycroft was right - this might very well turn into a danger night.

***

But if the woman inhabiting Sherlock's body was finding it entirely cumbersome and horrifying,  The Real Sherlock does not observe this, is oblivious to her suffering.  By contrast, he found the new lightweight, birdlike body he was gliding about in quite...exhilarating. 

Sherlock on an ordinary day is a man indifferent to the stares and opinions of others.  But in Molly's body, he is footloose and fancy free.  He bounded up steps, unused to carrying around so little weight. He found himself spinning Mary Tyler Moore-style in the middle of Gordon Square - the wind so warm and sweet, and the sun so lovely on his soft skin.  People on their way to work stopped and stared at the charming little woman pirouetting on one perfect little leg, her hair all askew in the breeze.

Oh, there was the odd hipster with a man-bun who pinched Molly's backside on the Tube.  Just one or two cat calls.  This didn't bother him in the least.  Still, might be prudent to wear a baggier sweater tomorrow.  Not because it bothered him to receive so much attention.  It made him a bit proud actually.  His pathologist really had an adorable body, this he already knew.  But it really got in the way.  It was beginning to interfere with normal, day-to-day business.  

Another bonus to this turn of events - he assumed he could have his way at Bart's and do all the experiments he had been wanting to do for ages, without even having to check with Molly first.  But things kept getting in the way.  First Mike Stamford kept sniffing around her.  Odd men, custodians, technicians, brushed against her.

He noticed people - men, mostly, staring at Molly, but not at her face.  At her body.  This happened so often Sherlock wanted to whip out the old cliche "my eyes are up here."

***

But Molly is not adjusting so well.

She has nightmares.  Nightmares that Sherlock has stolen her body.  I know it's crazy, John, but this is a dream, right?  Just a dream?

"What's a dream?" John asked from behind his paper.

"This.  All of this."  Molly was curled up on the couch in as tiny a ball as possible, but these long bony legs, and knobby knees, and impossibly long arms and elbows and everything kept her from feeling truly comfortable.

"Not a dream.  Go too deeply into your Mind Palace again?"

"My what?"

John looked up from behind his newspaper to confront Sherlock's twisted form on the couch.  

"Your Mind...never mind..."

***

Sherlock checks his phone - Molly's phone.

_I need to see you, Sherlock - MH_

***

They agreed to meet daily.  At first Sherlock didn't understand why they could not just report back to one another by text or phone.  

"Because you won't answer my texts.   _Sherlock_!" spitting out his name sarcastically.

After all, he's been very busy working at Bart's, researching cat training techniques, shopping for female-sized Belstaffs and comfortable shoes...exploring the delights of the female form, new ones revealing themselves daily.  How doing yoga made him feel like a cat, actually like a cat.  How her spine was so reticulated.  The flexibility of her upper back.  The skin on her upper arm.  The downy soft hair on the back of her neck.  The humid bit of heaven under her breasts.  Grabbing his leg and pulling it out behind him like an ice skater.  Were all women this flexible?  He knew the homo sapien female possessed a greater ability to flex the lower spine, thus shifting the center of gravity during pregnancy back over the legs, increasing mobility during fight or flight scenarios....but Molly was like a Gumby doll.

And he was becoming increasingly aware of his effect - _her_ effect - on men.  Even in Molly's burqua-like wardrobe, she caused a stir wherever she went. If it wasn't elderly men regarding her with paternal affection, or teen-aged boys inappropriately muttering sexually suggestive comments as they skateboarded past, it was Greg Lestrade or Mike Sanford or even John Watson for God's sake, hovering just a bit close to her, or following her apple-shaped bottom with their eyes. One lab technician seemed particularly besotted with her hair. A fascinating area of social bio-anthropology that he had to research in much greater depth.

"You should be spending your days researching how this horror show occurred. You spend too much time shopping for shoes.  I _have_ comfortable shoes."  Molly leaned over the now smaller Sherlock and whispered into her own head of hair.  

"No.  I refuse to wear those abominations."  He smiled a slight smile at the twenty-something barista, whose heart rate increased in response to the dewy, plump cheeked young woman at her cash register.  Sherlock noticed that the barista did not even spare a glance for the almost unseemingly tall man with a shock of dark curls who waited impatiently next in line.

"Lesbians really like me now.." Sherlock sighed.  "I can't say it doesn't make my day much more pleasant..."

Molly glared down at him.  "Please don't empty my bank account on bespoke shoes, and shirts, and trousers."

They took their coffees to an empty table away from others.  Molly winced as the channel carved by his would-be assassin's bullet announced itself for the fourth time that day.  When an elderly woman glared at the tall, rude detective, Molly jumped up to pulled the chair out for...herself, but a middle aged man beat her to it.

"I don't understand why everyone is so cordial to you," Sherlock sniffed, nodding his head in acknowledgment of the older man's gallantry.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I mean...people are being...nah...nie.."  He groped for the word.  "... _nice_ to me.  But they think it's you.  Obviously.  I understand it, you being you and all.  But I am not being particularly Molly-like, so why are they continuing to be...so...lovely."

"In what way lovely?"

"Like Gordon Lestrade...constantly buzzing by, dropping off candy, flowers..."

"Flowers!?"  

"Yes.  It's really pathetic.  As if you'd be interested in him...."

Molly kept the fact that she could be interested in the kind, graying, solidly built D.I. close to her chest.

"Well, I guess I've built up a store of goodwill, so to speak.  Maybe," she added shyly, the cockles of her heart warming to the notion. "So, lesbians?"

"Yes," Sherlock confirmed, dumping a ton of sugar into his coffee.  He decided not to mention all of the male attention Molly's body had been getting him.  Her sweet, apple breasts, her eyes like molten chocolate truffles.    

But then he noticed she had dressed him in a ripped t-shirt and jeans.  "Don't know how you can stand it.  Men touching you all the time"

"Touching me..my..touching my body?"

"Yes....quite distracting."

"And you stop them."

Sherlock stirred his coffee.

"You stop them. Sherlock.  Oh, my God."

"It's research!" they intoned simultaneously.

"That's because you are dressing me like a whore.  Sherlock - you can't go out like that.  No wonder people - lesbians and _everyone_ \- are all over you.  For example, what you are wearing today!!"

Sherlock looked down at the flimsy lace camisole he had chosen earlier that morning.  "It's comfortable."

"It's a nightgown!"

"Yes.  I suppose it is.  Women have way too many categories of clothing."

"My nipples are out!"

"No, they are not."

"I mean, you can see them right through the fabric."

"Well, they are beautiful.  Why would you hide them?"

"Because we live in a society."

Sherlock scoffed.

"So. I. Can.  Go. To. Work."  She punctuated each word with her fists on the table.  An older woman looked across the coffeeshop disapproving of the tall young man being so rude to his quiet, quaint little companion.

Sherlock silently sipped his coffee.

"Oh, no.  You haven't gone to work like that.  My work?  My place of work!?!? To St. Bart's?" Molly started sputtering.

"Oh, no," he lied.

 But he did add that to his collection of data concerning Molly and sartorial choices.  Perhaps his choice of clothing lately been a bit...careless...

"And you?"

"Hmm?"  

"I suppose it's been hard, having to peel women and men off of you all day."

"I hadn't noticed that," she answered.  Deadpan.  Knowing it would kill him that his long, elegant body was not universally adored.

Sherlock frowned and looked his Transport up and down.  "That's because you are dressing me like a hobo."

Not that he cared anymore.  His interest in his own body and how it might be faring under Molly's stewardship was rapidly fading.

"Sherlock, there's something else."

"What?"

"I think you are about to have a heart attack."

 


End file.
